Felix
I ran into someone I used to know today at the grocery store. I was standing at the cooler getting some oat milk when I hear this voice ask me in Spanish how I have been. I ignored the voice, believing that this person was talking to someone else. Again, the voice asked, “Hola, ¿Cómo estás viviendo?” I turned and saw a slight, but fit Mexican man. He looked at me and asked, “¿Tocas la guitarra? ¿No? ¿Te acuerdas de mí?” making a guitar motion with his hands.
“You play the guitar? You remember me?
I said that yes, I played guitar but shook my head no to remembering him.
“You used to play guitar at the VA center. Remember?”
“Yeah, yeah. I remember. What’s your name?”
“Felix,” he replied with a huge smile. With that, it all came back to me.
Let me tell you about Felix.
Back in 2015, I was asked to volunteer to teach guitar to veterans at the VA center here in Albuquerque. It was a program created by two Afghanistan vets, Robert and Thomas as a way to reach out to vets from all conflicts. I agreed and every Tuesday afternoon I would trek out to the rec hall on campus and meet with men and women of varying skill levels to teach them whatever they wanted to learn. Sometimes it was some music theory or a new guitar chord. Often it was a particular song. Guitars were lent to the vets if they didn’t have their own.
Felix came to the rec center with his own acoustic guitar. I always started out with a little music theory before meeting with each player individually. When I first met Felix, I asked him what he wanted to learn. His answer was simple. “I want to learn Waltz Across Texas. I want to impress my ex-wife.”
An odd motivation, I thought, but whatever kept him engaged would work for me. The song has only three chords and can be played in any key. Felix didn’t have any guitar skill, so the first thing I had to do was to teach him how to tune his guitar, how the fretboard worked and the chords to the song. That was lesson one. I left him to practice the chords.
The following week, Felix returned. After the initial theory lesson, I again made the rounds and ended up with Felix. I was surprised that he had made decent progress with chords. Anyone who has ever tried to learn to play guitar knows that the contortions that you have to put your hands in to make guitar chords are not natural, and it takes time for your brain to connect with your hands to move smoothly from one chord to another. This generally results in halting the song as you move from one chord to another. We moved through the song a couple of times. It was encouraging.
By the next week, Felix was playing a little more smoothly considering that he had almost no rhythm and difficulty singing and playing at the same time, another common problem when learning to play. Still, he persevered. He would sit tableside strumming out of time and humming the melody, trying to get the two in sync. It was these moments that always made the guitar lessons so uplifting for me. So many men and women would come in wanting to learn a song and be so encouraged when they reached a milestone or learned a favorite song. Week after week, Felix improved. He would never be a great singer or guitarist, but he seemed impressed with himself and feeling better about Waltz Across Texas.
In addition to guitar lessons, our music community brings songwriters and veterans together to write songs about the veterans’ experience in the military. We hold these workshops three or four times a year. Mornings, we gather with veterans who relate their stories while songwriters sit and listen. After lunch, the songwriters and veterans attempt to write songs that describe the vet experiences. I announced the upcoming workshop at the end of my lesson one Tuesday.
That following Saturday, about fifteen veterans showed up for the workshop including Felix. I had the distinct idea that Felix believed that this was another lesson because he brought his guitar. Nevertheless, he was welcome to attend. During the morning, we heard stories of battles, of separation from home, of not being able to let go of their experiences. Not all stories were traumatic. Some were almost comical and the songwriters listened intently. Felix sat stone-faced.
During lunch, Felix sat away from the other veterans. I took my lunch plate and sat with him and asked how Waltz Across Texas was coming along. He said he was still working on it. I mentioned to him that he didn’t need to stay if he was uncomfortable. The workshops are not for everyone. Some guys leave because they can’t talk about what they’ve been through. Some don’t trust civilian songwriters. Some just aren’t ready. Felix said he didn’t have anything in common with these younger vets.
Once lunch was done, I sat with Felix talking about the guitar lessons. A couple of other songwriters, Ken and Daniel wandered over. Ken is a Vietnam veteran like Felix and they got to talking. In a few minutes, Felix was telling his story.
Felix was 101st Airborne like my friend Henry. He parachuted into Vietnam. He volunteered for the Army at 18 and was rushed through basic and sent some 13,000 miles away to Vietnam. He told stories about watching good men, young men like himself, die during the war. At the time, a tour of duty was one year, so by the time he was 20, Felix was home. It was not the TDY that had made an impression of Felix, but rather the reception he received when he got home.
At the airport, the walkways were lined with men and women his age screaming and calling him a baby burner. They spit on him. People threw things at him and all the other vets who came off the plane. He said he wanted to tear his uniform off. Even after he came home, his crew cut gave him away in a world where all the people his age wore their hair long.
“In basic training, they taught us how to be soldiers, but not how to live a normal life when we came home.” People offered him drugs and alcohol so that he could forget the things they believed he had done.
“People assumed that I had to be an alcoholic or a drug addict, so that’s what I became,” he said not looking up from his shoes. “I was married for thirty years and my wife never left me until she died. After that, I straightened up.” Felix remarried and moved on with his life.
Now, there’s this weird feeling we sometimes get when we are asking someone if we can help them write about their experiences. It’s like we’re profiting off of their misery and it is a delicate thing to ask someone about putting their life on display. Felix, however, was more than willing to assist. For the rest of the afternoon, we worked on the song together. As we put the song down on paper, you could see the weight lift from Felix. His stone face disappeared, and he began to smile.
The following Tuesday, Felix was a no show at our guitar lessons. He never came back again. I asked around and someone told me that he had moved to Arizona. A few months later, Ken Weddington and his band, Higher Ground Bluegrass recorded the song in Santa Fe. We made a video of the song as it was being recorded. Every Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day, the song is put into rotation on the Great American Country Network and Country Music Television. Many people, veterans and non-veterans alike have seen the video and reach out to us to tell us how the video has affected them, either by telling their story or helping them to understand what has all too often happened to our returning veterans.
While talking with Felix in the supermarket, I asked if he had ever seen the video. He hadn’t. I pulled my phone out and he watched, sort of enthralled at the recording process and that his words had come together so nicely with a full band. He handed my phone back to me and I shared the video with him as a link to his phone. He promised to look at it.
Felix had a few complaints about the way the VA had treated him, denying some benefits. I told him who he should contact and offered to reach out to someone I knew who could help him. He thanked me.
“Do you know how many people your song has helped?” I asked.
Felix just stood there and blinked. I told him that the song plays every year around the world. Again, no reaction. He seemed embarrassed. I looked at his grandson.
“Your gramps is a hero,” I said
“I know,” was all he said.
Felix quickly said thank you and said he had to go.
“Did you ever learn to play Waltz Across Texas?” I asked. Felix just smiled. I guess I’ll never know.
Here’s a link to the song. Please share this with someone who needs to hear it.
Copyright 2025 by Jose Antonio Ponce